Elfrida sighed. That won't work for long, she thought. I hope Daddy won't find the report on the Bank Scandal in Hamsterton.

What had happened? Let us go back a few weeks und let us go to Hamsterton. Where is Hamsterton? Nobody really knows. Daisy is of the opinion that there was a secret tunnel in the Magic Forest and the hamsters had come that way.

However, there was much ado in Hamsterton because a bank had been opened there. All hamsters were certain that soon they would be very rich. At a bank, after all, you get money, don't you? The owner of the bank was Carlo Killjoy, a very, very rich man. As mentioned before, the hamsters at first were most delighted when they got money from the bank and only had to sign some small piece of paper. As most of the hamsters were not able to read they were not interested in what was written on the paper. Now they could buy munchies in abundance and all felt fine. More and more hamsters ran to the Hamsterton-Bank and Mr. Killjoy needed assistance. So he employed some hamsters as clerks. A few weeks later nobody had any idea how much money was there and the chaos was complete.

Carlo Killjoy raged. Together with Dr. Shyster, his counselor and lawyer, he was sitting in his office and discussed what to do now.

"How came it about that you went bust?" Dr. Shyster wanted to know from Mr. Killjoy.

"Stupidity", Carlo Killjoy grumbled, "damned stupidity. I looked for people to work in my bank and a lot of hamsters showed up. Of course I checked whether they knew anything about finance business."

"Well?" Dr. Shyster asked. "Did they?"

Carlo Killjoy sucked at his fat cigar, blew the smoke and continued:

"Sure, the hamsters told me about exchange courses, shares and the like. Naturally I thought they knew what they were talking about. Some of them talked about some special hairdryer but I had no idea what they meant. However, the hamsters knew so many expressions that I thought them to be experts.”

"Special hairdryer?" Dr. Shyster asked.

"Yep, special hairdryer, Euro exchange and all that. They knew the words but they had no idea of the meaning."

"So you employed idiots!" Dr. Shyster looked at Mr. Killjoy steadily. "I'll take over the matter. After all, I'm your counselor and lawyer. First of all we will punish those hamsters who feigned knowledge of banking matters."

"You cannot really do that", Mr. Killjoy moaned.

"O yes, I can", Dr. Shyster said. "I even have to as your counselor and lawyer because you have a contract with me and I have to take care of your interests – remember?"

Carlo Killjoy moved restlessly in his big armchair when Dr. Shyster continued: "And now get me the boss of the hamsters. I've got to put some questions to him."

Mr. Killjoy pressed a button and spoke into a micro: "Topple, please come into my office."

A few minutes later a hamster with a pen behind his ear entered and looked at the two men attentively.

"Well, well, Mr. – eh – Topple", Dr. Shyster said and looked down to the little hamster. "Will you tell me which amount of circulating assets is at our disposal?"

Carlo Killjoy rolled his eyes when he translated: "Circulating assets, very good, homepage, special hairdryer."

"Out!" Dr. Shyster croaked and tried to kick the hamster but caught his foot in the carpet and crashed down. Topple squeaked and fled while Dr. Shyster looked at his expensive suit and discovered a long tear in the sleeve. Infuriated he stalked over to Mr. Killjoy. "Where are the notes with the hamsters' signatures?" he shouted and Carlo Killjoy pointed at the safe.

"In there", he said. "It's open, there's no money left."

The lawyer trod over to the safe, took some of the notes, read them and said: "Very good, each hamster committed himself to pay back the money. They all have signed that they belong to us if they cannot pay. I myself set up this contract. The hamsters have no chance, they belong to us and we can do with them whatever we like. First of all we'll claim those hamsters who wasted all the money and ruined our business."

"But it's not the animals' fault that they have not idea about banking", Mr. Killjoy stammered.

"Doesn't matter", Dr. Shyster growled. "I want my revenge. The cat-police shall arrest all hamsters who work in this bank.”

Topple, who had hidden behind the door, suppressed a shocked squeak and ran straightaway to warn his friends.

After Topple found all those of his friends who had been working at the bank, he told them about Dr. Shyster. He told them that this lawyer and counselor of Mr. Killjoy had the saying now and wanted to get the hamsters down.

“We have to flee”, Fluffy said. “My cousin Flecki once told me something about a Magic Forest. But I don’t know the way.”

“And where is Flecki now?” Topple asked.

“In Australia, I think“, Fluffy replied, “or maybe in Syria.”

“That helps us a lot”, Topple groaned.

“But I know something”, a redhaired hamster named Dumple said. “My friend Goldi once told me that we have to search at the old oak tree behind Hamstermound. A cave entrance is said to be there.“

„So what are we waiting for?“ Fluffy asked. “Dumple and I will walk ahead. I carry a lot of paper scraps with me. We will leave a trail with them and you will follow us.”

Fluffy and Dumple set out.

“Paper scraps? What does Fluffy need that for?” Paunchy asked, a portly hamster who for ever was chewing carrots.

“No idea”, Topple said, “she’s just forever shredding.”

When Fluffy and Dumple reached the old oak tree, they looked for the hidden cave entrance. They looked and looked and when they almost wanted to give up, they found it. Now they only had to wait for their friends and the journey could start.

When the sun was setting Fluffy said: “I’m bored, let’s go home again.”

Jenny did not listen to the two pigs because she had discovered something. Interestedly she watched some birds which obviously were very excited. Were they quarrelling? Jenny nudged Elfrida and Daisy and pointed at the birds. Bernie, who also took notice, shrugged: “Quarreling over chows, silly birds!”

Jenny shook her head. “No, Bernie, look closer. The birds are sitting on branches and look to the ground. There has to be something they don’t know.”

The friends nodded to each other and walked into the direction of the chirping birds.

The two quarrelling pigs stayed behind. When they only had a few steps to go Norbert stumbled over a root and fell. Wailing loudly, he lay on the cold ground.

While he helped Norbert up and consoled him, the girls had reached the spot. They knelt down and at first did not know what to say.

“Cigam Tserof?”

The children took a frightened step back. Speaking hamsters!

“Ollah! Laiceps reyrdriah!”

„That has to be Hamstish“, Elfrida gasped. “I heard that somewhere already. Jenny, do you understand them?”

Jenny stepped forward. „Let’s see, how did it work? There’s some trick, but I can’t remember it.”

By now the two pigs had stopped quarrelling and curiously came closer.

“Aha”, Rosie grunted. “Hamster!”

“Aha! Aha! CigamTtserof?”

„Tserofcim?“ Rosie goggled at the hamster who had said so. Then she pointed at herself: “Rosie!”

“Eisor!”

“Not raizor – Rosie? I am R o s i e !“

“Eisor!”

Rosie got furious by now. “You want to have trouble?!”

“Laiceps reyrdriah!”

Jenny shoved the pig aside.

“Let me try, I think I got the idea”, she said and bent down to the hamster. “Ollah retsmah!” she began, turned to her friends and said in a low voice: “That is ‘Hallo hamster!’ in Hamstish.

Suddenly the little animals began to cheer. The children sighed in relief. They had succeeded, they could talk with their new friends.

As at this time of the year it was rather cold in the Magic Forest, the children decided to go to the house of Elfrida’s parents first.

Fortunately her parents just were at aunt Odilia’s to have coffee and cake. Bruno was on a class outing and so they could do as they pleased for the next hours. The hamsters were taken to Bruno’s vacant room.

“Bruno will only be back next week”, Elfrida explained. “My parents won’t go in there in the meantime. My daddy certainly won’t for last time he slipped on one of Bruno’s cars and skidded right into the wardrobe. O my, how he swore!”

When the lodgings for the hamsters were secured, the children had to learn. To understand the hamsters they had to learn Hamstish. Jenny gave the lessons:

“Well, Hamstish is our language backwards. So word is ‘drow’ and sentence is ‘ecnetnes’. You may turn or not turn ‘ck’. In Hamsteriran it is not turned, in Hamsterhoosen it is. Rosie, what is ‘jacket’ in Hamsterhoosenish?”

Bertha cleared her throat. “It’s ‘tekcaj’ of course, as ‘ck’ is turned in Hamsterhoosen. Everybody knows that, or almost everybody!“

And so they continued their lessons until their heads were spinning. Finally they had made it and after two days they could talk with the hamsters fluently.

Topple now told their whole story and the children silently listened how the hamsters had to leave their homes and never could go back.

“But the worst thing”, Fluffy cried, “is that our friends certainly have to suffer terribly. I’m sure that wicked lawyer forces them to toil in the pits of Hamsterjelly and search for gold.”

“That’s it”, Dumple said. “He wants his money back and now our friends have to work night and day until they collapse.”

“We have no means to help them, it’s pointless. We don’t have a chance against that lawyer.”

“Yes, Grumpy, you have”, Elfrida said and looked at him. “We can and will help you but first of all we have to get to Hamsterton.”

Topple was so happy that he hopped into Elfrida’s arms when suddenly Bobble came in. He walked carefully not to tread on a car. The hamsters flitted under Bruno’s bed, all of them except Topple. Topple was in Elfrida’s arms and goggled at her. Elfrida goggled at Bobble and Bobble goggled at Elfrida. It was silent for about a minute, then Elfrida said: “Cute, isn’t it, Daddy? That’s the latest hit, a talking hamster with battery.”

“Aha!” Bobble said. „A talking hamster! So what’s your name?“

„Aha! Aha!“ Topple replied.

Surprised, Bobble took a backward step.

“That’s quite something”, Bobble grumbled and turned to Elfrida. “I just wanted to tell you that we are staying overnight with aunt Odilia and I’ll leave the car here. We will be home late tomorrow, so behave!”

Without looking at his feet, Bobble walked out and Elfried cried: “Take care, Daddy, Bruno’s cars are in…”

When in this style Bobble had taken his farewell and noisily shut the front door, Elfrida came back to her first idea: “So we have to get to Hamsterton.”

Everybody nodded, only Topple shook his little head.

“You can’t get there, the cave entrance is much too small for you.”

What were they to do now? Pensively all the friends sat on the floor and turned this over in there minds, but they had no idea.

Finally Rosie cleared her throat. “How did that Whatshisname and the other Whatshisname come to you?”

Bertha blinked and shook her head. “Will you please express yourself? Which Whatshisname and the other Whatshisname?”

“She’s talking about Carlo Killjoy and Dr. Shyster”, Daisy explained.

“Yes, indeed”, Elfrida said. “How did they come to you?”

“Well, by car”, Grumpy explained. “They broke the barrier. It’s this way: If you want to leave Hamsterton, you’ve got to do it with high speed. With a rocket or a fast car for instance. You dash towards the high mountains near Hamstermound. If your speed is big enough, you simply fly through the mountain at that spot.”

“Exactly”, Fluffy added. “Killjoy and his lawyer arrived with a big, fast car!”

Elfrida thought and walked up and down in the room. She looked to the ceiling, then at her friends, then at the hamsters and finally out of the window. “We might take my daddy’s car.”

“That slowcoach?” Bernie shook his head.

“I could rig it”, Rosie grunted. “Perhaps it’s faster then.”

Nobody answered and Bertha wrinkled her nose.

“I would rather fasten myself to a rocket than have a car rigged by you.”

“That’s it!” Bernie cried. „We’ll speed up Bobble’s jalopy by New Year rockets!”

In no time Elfrida had fetched a box from the kitchen. The thirty hamsters scrambled in and Bernie took the box to the car. Rosie took the wheel and when they all had fastened their seat belts she started.

“Eh, where shall I go to?” Rosie asked and blushed.

“To Professor Hasty, of course. He know everything about rockets.“

Rosie nodded and accelerated. Cautiously she took the car out of the parking bay and slowly approached a red traffic light. When they had passed the big crossing another red traffic light made Rosie stop meekly.

Her friends were surprised and Bertha shouted: “Well, if you go on like that, we’ll all arrive safely!”

Rosie did not answer but slowly drove on towards the town boundary. When they were out of town, Rosie whistled softly and said: “Thank God. I thought that police car would follow us right to the lighthouse. On we go!”

The tires squealed, Bertha shrieked and the hamsters squeaked when the car suddenly sped up and raced down the road. Rosie was merrily singing ‘Country Roads’ and took the bend with high speed. A few minutes later the others were glad to see Prof. Hasty’s lighthouse. In a moment Rosie would have to slow down and to turn to the left. So they all thought – Rosie didn’t.

“Today is open dune day!” Rosie shouted and steered the car sharply to the left into the dunes. With full speed she raced over the dunes. Again and again her friends shrieked in panic when the car was right in the air. Finally there was a big bump and the car was stuck in a high sand dune. The front and back wheels were hanging in the air and the journey was over. With trembling legs they all got out, only a few steps from the lighthouse. It took them a few minutes to go there, for they had to collect the hamsters who were all over the car.

When they entered the lighthouse they found a new door. “An elevator”, Bernie stated and pressed a button.

The children could see that the lights on the panel were blinking wildly. Some swooshing and whistling was to be heard, then there was a loud crash. The door opened slowly and Prof. Hasty was lying on the elevator floor. All about him lay smoking debris.

“Not really ready, the good piece, Professor!” Elfrida grinned and helped him up.

“The r-rub is in the h-hydraulics”, the professor stammered and brushed his work coat. “We’d better w-walk.”

365 stairs later they all were quite exhausted and when they had rested, Jenny told the professor what had happened. When she told him about their rocket car idea, the professor sat down at his desk, made a drawing and some calculations.

“That m-might work. How thick is the rock formation?” he asked and looked at Topple.

“52 sretem!” Toppel replied.

“Sretem?” the professor asked.

“Meters!” Daisy explained.

Prof. Hasty made his calculations. A big pile of paper was in front of him and one page after the other he filled with numbers and formulas. One hour later he went into his lab, came back with four metal tubes and put them onto the table.

Curiously the children looked at the tubes. They were about half a metre long and had a diameter big enough to put a tennis ball in. A few minutes later Professor Hasty came with a bucket and placed it beside the tubes.

“Magnesium carbonate and a secret p-powder, that will drive the rockets. N-now let’s carry all that d-down and mount it”, the professor proposed. He took the bucket with the rocket drive, Bernie and Jenny stuck the tubes under their arms and they all walked down the stairs to the beach. Having arrived there, the professor looked at the car in surprise. It still was hanging on the dune, wheels in the air.

“Y-you have a curious way of parking, you know”, he said and took a closer look at the car. Then he took the first tube and held it to the left front wing. He handed a pair of gloves, which he had taken along, to Bernie and asked him to hold the tube. With a small welder he began to weld the tube to the wing. When the tube was fixed, he did the same at the right front wing. Half an hour later the two last tubes were welded to the back wings und with much surprise the children saw that Bobble’s jalopy had change into a rocket car.

“Oops!” Rosie said. „I can hardly wait to drive that. But how do we get it from the dune?”

“As m-matter of f-fact, you will not drive the car”, the professor said. “I will do that.”

“Than I won’t go with you, I’ll never again will go with you!” Rosie wailed.

“All r-right, you get it down from the dune, b-but I will drive it to Hamsterton, got me?”

Rosie nodded and got into the car. The professor took some powder from the bucket and filled about a handful in each of the tubes. Now he fastened a wire to each tube and all the wires were connected to a switch.

He handed the switch to Rosie and said: “If y-you are ready, press the switch.”

Then the professor asked the children to step aside and nodded to Rosie. Rosie pressed the switch, the powder caught fire and the car began to vibrate with a hissing sound. Suddenly it swished like a rocket down to the beach and plunged into the water.

“W-well, w-well, that was a little too much powder”, the professor said when they ran down to rescue Rosie.

A few minutes later they had got a very wet and very angry Rosie out of the water and the car as well. Rosie was rubbed dry and finally they could start to the Magic Forest.

The animals in the Magic Forest were not to forget this day so easily. It wasn’t every day that a rocket car full of mafficking children and squeaking hamsters crossed the wood. When they approached the clearing with the witch house, the professor fired the rockets for a moment and with breakneck speed they passed the witch house. The witch who just was preparing her slime soup was totally taken by surprise when her pot sprang from the hearth.

“I think her roof’s blown off”, Bernie grinned and on they raced until they came to the spot where the hamsters had reached the Magic Forest through the secret passage. Directly in front of them was a high rocky mountain. The professor got out of the car and refilled the rockets. Again and again he checked on the amount of powder.

The children waited impatiently and Bertha whispered: “Why don’t we go?”

Bernie grinned. “If the professor takes too much powder, we’ll go right on to Hamsterjelly. Not to talk about the fact that the car will be scrap and we’ll probably not survive it. However, if he takes too little we might be stuck in the rocks.”

When they all had done what he told them, the professor turned and said: “Ready for take-off?” Then he pressed the switch and just heard Elfrida shouting:

“Stop! I think we made a mistake!”

The rest of her words were drowned in the howling of the rockets.

At first the car was very slow, but then it shot forward and disappeared in the rocks. Hissing, the car moved on and the passengers held their breath. For a moment it was pitch dark all around them, then suddenly it got light again when they left the rocks and were flying over Hamstermound. They passed trees and shrubs with racing speed. The hamsters had stopped squeaking since long and anxiously huddled together.

On and on the wild flight went until a mound showed up in the distance. The rocket car shot towards it. The mound seemed to get bigger and bigger until the car crashed into it. For a few minutes they all were silent, Then Bertha said with a sharp voice:

“It stinks dreadfully here. Where are we?”

The hamsters scrambled from under the seats. They stood on their hind-paws and Flecki said: “That’s the waste deposit of Hamsterjelly. We landed in the waste!”

They got the car out of the waste deposit cautiously and drove on. The roads of Hamsterton were much too narrow for the car, so they proceeded very slowly. But finally they arrived. Hamstercity, the bank quarter, presenterd a shocking sight. Everywhere hamsters were dragging much too heavy carts. Many of them lugged sacks and in all it was a woebegone picture. Scrubby and haggard, that’s what the hamsters looked like.

“And obviously they get nothing to eat”, Grumpy stated. “Many of them surely collapsed already.”

Topple stopped a hamster who was dragging a heavy cart and talked with him. Then he turned to the others and said in a shocked voice: “He hasn’t eaten for days because the sand which he carts to the bank does not contain enough gold dust.”

“That’s the limit”, Elfrida loudly said in Hamstish so that everybody could hear it. “Enough with all that grafting, we’ll collar these buggers!”

Infuriated, Elfrida stormed into the bank. Her friends followed her closely.

They had just rushed into the entrance hall when they stopped, appalled. Over there Carlo Killjoy was busy checking the sandbags of the hamsters for gold dust. Behind him was a staircase built of marble. At the end of the staircase the lawyer Dr. Shyster was sitting in a large armchair like a throne. But what appalled the friends was sitting at the foot of the stairs. Two big cats looked at them with glittering eyes. They bared their dangerous claws and hissed loudly.

“Visitors”, Dr. Shysters said with a sly smile. “I think you have not appointment.”

“You damned son of a bitch”, Bertha shouted, “what have you done to the hamsters?”

“Done to them? They signed a contract. If they don’t pay me back, they’ll work until they collapse.”

The lawyer gave a loud, mean laughter. Then he snapped his fingers and the big cats slowly sneaked up to the children. The lawyer rose and followed. “Get out of my bank or you’ll get to know my kitties.”

They all retreated until they had reached their car. When they were outside the bank, Dr. Shyster gave the car a scornful look and grinned:

“Regarding good ideas I’m quite a genius. You now all get into the boot. In the bucket on the back seat will be the powder for your funny rocket drive. When you’re in the boot, I’ll load the powder and send you to the moon.”

From his jacket pocket he fetched a bundle of papers. “Here are the contracts. The silly hamsters signed them all and will pay for it. Now, get into the boot!”

Reluctantly they obeyed. Prof. Hasty went first, then the two pigs… Just a minute! Where was Rosie? Bertha wanted to say something, but Elfrida nudged her. Elfrida scrambled in last and wanted to jump out of the boot again quickly, but Dr. Shyster paid attention.

“No tricks, lady, get yourself in there!”

With a sigh Elfrida scrambled into the boot. This lawyer was too smart for her. Rosie was her last hope. While the lawyer and his two dangerous cats were standing at the boot, Rosie felt like a nervous wreck. As matter of fact when the others had stormed the bank, the hungry pig had searched the car for something to eat. She had just been opening a box of biscuits when her friends came out of the bank again – backwards. When she saw the dangerous cats, she preferred to stay in the car and now listened with pounding heart. What now? Her brain worked frantically. She tried to slide from the passenger seat to the floor but left her hold. To hold on something she gripped – the switch for the rockets and then it happened:

There was a tremendous bang, followed by the hissing of a starting rocket. The car jumped forward, then all was silent.

Anxiously Rosie turned and looked through the rear window. Dr. Shyster was still standing there with the cats. They were quite blackened. Fur, claws and teeth of the erstwhile dangerous cats were singed by the heat. Dr. Shyster stood there naked and had the rests of a burnt bundle of papers in his hands.

Carlo Killjoy was standing in front of the bank and almost toppled over with laughter.

When all the poor hamsters saw that the cats no longer could harm them, they attacked. With their small, piked teeth they fell on the cats and bit their naked bums. They did the same to the lawyer.

Elfrida climbed out of the boot and said: “I think your contracts just ended in smoke!”

They all laughed loudly when the mean lawyer and his mean cats ran as fast as they could. They jumped into their car and rushed off.

“I guess we won’t see them again”, Bernie grinned.

Well, dear reader, this finishes our story. And what became of Carlo Killjoy? He was really sorry about the whole matter. Okay, he had wanted to cheat the hamsters a little. But that his counsellor and lawyer was such a nasty piece had opened his eyes. Carlo Killjoy lost a lot of money, but he nevertheless was not a poor man. After the hamsters had forgiven him, he opened a restaurant in Hamstercity. All those hamsters who had worked for him at the bank before, now also found work at his new restaurant. So they all were satisfied.

All of them? Well, almost. Bobble found not explanation why his vehicle had changed into a rocket car. It took Elfrida quite some time to convince him that this new sort of car war really swell. As matter of fact he tested it. One evening he clandestinely put some firecrackers into the tube and lit them. Unfortunately, this went quite awry because the firecrackers on the left side did not ignite so that the car rotated like a propeller, took off and landed in the middle of the crossing where Constable Betrams controlled the traffic. It was not easy for Bobble to share a room in the hospital with the constable for the next few weeks. The constable’s scolding rang in his ears for days.

Elfrida, Jenny, Daisy, Susie, Rosie, Bertha, Bernie, and Norbert began to widen the tunnel in the Magic Forest so that they could visit Hamsterton and their hamster friends. Also in Hamsterhoosen, Hamsterjelly, Hamstermound, and Hamsteriran many volunteers announced their readiness to join in.

Perhaps the next edition of the Hamstertimes will refer to this.

Eht dnE (The End)

Hamsternews 2nd Edition

Hamsternews -An independent Newsaperfor the Up to Date Hamster

2nd Edition

Hamsterton Gone Bankrupt!

Read in Detail in this Edition!

How Could this Happen and How Does the Mayor React?

After the great success of our very first edition we again want to inform our readers first hand::

Housing Shortage in Hamsterton! What now?

Pleh, pleh! Cinap, cinap!

Cries of this kind were to be heard in and around Hamsterton within the last weeks. Hamstertimes, dear reader, in this edition gives a detailed report on the events.

Reporter disappeared!

We have sent our two most able hamster reporters to Hamsterton to get at the bottom of things. Unfortunately our first reporter got lost and showed up in Hamsterjelly. He married there and we did not hear of him again. Pity! So we sent the second reporter but this gannet began his investigation at a restaurant and had to be taken to the All Hamstian Hospital with a stomach upset. Finally Hamstertimes asked one of the few inhabitants of Hamsterton who are able to read and write to note down the story. So here is the special report of our special reporter Topple:

The Whole Story

It already began with the building of the first barrage at Hamsterton. We wanted to get electricity at last and learned that a hydropower station was easily to erect. So we started but somehow something went awry and the guests of honour came away most unlucky. The responsible chief engineer Botchy had opened the floodgate much too early so that all guests were washed away. Twelve of them we found in Hamsterjelly, the rest are still missing. Unfortunately the dam did not really last because some of the hamsters had worked it with cardboard. After a few minutes the new dam was washed away and everything looked as boresome as before.

So we stood around stupidly like some jackasses until Dumple had the idea to build wind power stations to get electricity.

“That’s quite simple”, he said and explained his plan. “We have to build a big propeller. Then we take a long rubber band and connect the propeller to a motor. That’s all we need to get electricity.”

“And then?” Fluffy asked. „How do we proceed?“

„With a transformer”, Dumple said and made an important face, but Fluffy asked:

“Why that?”

„No idea“, Dumple grumbled. „We just need it, so don’t ask.“

During the next days lightning was to be seen over Hamsterton. However, is wasn’t natural lightning but a kind of short circuits in Dumple’s homemade transformer. Together with his friends Rooty and Louisa he had managed to connect some windmills and to power an old generator.

Dumple mounting a transformer

They had removed the generator from an old ship which had stranded near Hamsterjelly many years ago. The full power of 10 windmills now sped the generator via 1733 rubber rings for jelly jars. Two cables led from the generator to the transformer but unfortunately these two cables got into contact.

There was a tremendous short circuit. Unfortunately the HTCC, the Hamstian Technical Control Company, had forgotten to put in some fuses, so that the transformer burnt out completely. For hours great sparks and lightning could be seen in the sky. As HAMFI, the Hamster Fire Brigade was on a staff outing, it took quite some time until the fire could be extinguished.

Then the next disaster happened: instead of cutting the rubber rings so that the generator stopped rotating, the transformer was drowned. The water brought a short circuit to the generator which stopped with a loud bang. The rubber rings ran on for a while until they were wound up tightly, then they unwound again with great speed. By this the ten windmills were suddenly driven with so much power that they ripped from their mooring and their sails darted over Hamsterton.

Following this day, there were no more high buildings in Hamsterton. The hurtling windmill sails had brought all houses to the same level like a scythe does with grass. Luckily nobody was injured – not seriously at least.

So within short time the second important project went down the tube and Hamsterton urgently needed a feeling of success. By the dam failure the streets of Hamsterton were under water. So the mayor, after he had been rescued from under the debris of his town hall, had an idea: “Why don’t we build a smashing swimming pool?” he shouted on the floated market place of Hamsterton.

„We dig a big hole and the water flows into it. Firstly our streets are dry then and secondly we have built a low-cost swimming pool.”

“Am I to take a bath in that cold, dirty water?” Grumpy grumped.

“Don’t worry”, Dumple cheerfully said. “We’ll mount a filter unit and very soon we will have a power plant for electricity. We’ve been quite close to it after all.”

„O yes“, Fluffy butt in, „we certainly were quite close to be beheaded by the windmills.“

“Howsoever”, the irritated mayor continued, “progress sometimes requires sacrifices and sometimes there will be failures.”

“To tell the truth, there have only been failures up to now”, Fluffy stated, “and I have no mind to be a sacrifice.”

The discussion on this took the whole night. In the early hours the hamsters started the first brawls so that HAMPO, i.e. Hamster Police, had to be called in. The HAMPO-officers did what they always do in such cases: they threw sunflower seed. The hamsters immediately broke off of their brawl to go for the tasty food.

The excavation work for the new swimming pool started the next day. Everybody wanted to join in which resulted in a problem. The hamsters were standing much too close. So either a neighbouring hamster was hit by a shovel or buried under soil.

Turbo Power - Thanks to Hamster Power!

Shocking! Another brawl in Hamsterton!

It did not take long until the first fights started and the first injuries occured.

Nothing worked and so the hamsters decided to open a second site. Later on the two dens were to be connected. Also this went awry as one group filled the den of the other group with soil. After two days the hamsters noticed that they had made no progress at all.

The matter was reported to the mayor and he turned it over in his mind for several hours. Then he found the solution: if one group always filled the newly excavated den of the other group, only one group should be working at a time. So the mayor gave order that half of the hamsters were to go home.

Flecki, a very quickfooted hamster, was sent to the site with this news. When she arrived there she told the waiting hamsters what the mayor had said.

Half of the hamsters now left the site, but instead of one group, half of both groups went home. So the outcome was not much better and after another two days it was reported to the mayor that the plan went awry.

Then a hamster named Goldi rose to speak and proposed not to dig the den but to blast it. Everybody was delighted and the HTCC was ordered to prepare the blasting operation. Better too much than too little, the HTCC-hamsters thought, and distributed all the explosives they had.

In the late afternoon the blasting operation took place. Many guests were invited and even HOOTV1 – Hamsterhoosen Television –, Jelly-TV from Hamsterjelly and HI-Plus from Hamsteriran were present. The last live-pictures to be seen showed the mayor with his noble guests when he pressed the button for the blasting operation.

Then the transmission in the whole country failed. Chief engineer Botchy had made quite a job of it. Hamsterton was razed to the ground, but the same evening the mayor held a noteworthy speech on the debris.

“We will not stop to modernize Hamsterton!” he shouted to the cheering crowd. “Small setbacks like this one will not discourage us!”

Speech of the Mayor

„Small setbacks?“ Fluffy whispered to Dumple. „He flattened Hamsterton, all houses are gone, nobody knows how we shall go on – that’s what he calls a small setback?!”

“O well”, Dumple mumbled, “at least we only can modernize for it can’t get worse.”

Indeed Hamsterton was nothing but a waste landscape and the hamsters immediately began the reconstruction of their town. As they well knew that labour like that goes along with injuries like bruised paws and tails they first built a hospital. That was quite a good idea for soon the next disaster was to come. Working makes hungry, the hamsters thought, and so the next thing they built was a restaurant. Obviously the gas tubes had not been laid correctly so that there was an explosion in the kitchen. About twenty hamsters had to be taken to the new hospital with singed fur. HTCC accused HAMFI, HAMFI accused HTCC. They had a brawl and the HAMPO had to be called in.

Injured hamsters during construction works!

Again there was an explosion in our beautiful city! What is the mayor doing in this situation?

Kipping, of course!

And munching as well! Shocking!

Within the next days schools and shops were built while the population lived in tents. Everything would have worked according to plan but due to rain and cold more and more hamsters began to dig burrows, so that new problems came up. HAMFI and HTCC were still fighting each other and had no time to pump down all the water in Hamsterton so that the ground water was still rather high. So all the burrows soon were flooded and Hamsterton looked like one big tent camp.

Bugs in your home? Take Goldi’s Fart-Gas!

“It couldn’t be worse”, Flecki groaned and looked at the camp.

“It could”, Goldi objected. “For instance we may…”

“Shut up!” Flecki snapped. “Instead of that silly prattling we should think how to help our poor friends. I have a snug little party in mind. Something warm to eat, perhaps a hotpot.”

“Why, yes!” Goldi cheered. “I’ll take over the potshot-matter.”

“And I’ll prepare some pretty napkins, which I will paint myself”, Flecki excitedly said. “But you have to start at noon. I’m going to make the invitations.”

Both hamsters ran off to different directions to start their work.

Hotpot in Hamsterton! Just step in - outch!

When Flecki one minute before noon smoothed out the last napkins, something stirred in her mind. Which word did Goldi use when he had repeated her hotpot-proposal?! Potshot – o goodness! Terrified, she looked over to the marquee and what was standing in front of it, made her panic. Hundreds of empty boxes marked “Goulash Soup” were lying about. In the middle of all these boxes was placed a giant canon. Goldi was standing beside it, lighter in hand. Flecki wanted to shout but her voice failed her. Then the canon went off.

By the shock wave all tents were swept away. Thousands of cans with goulash soup shot into the sky. A panic broke out in the camp, the hamsters ran helter-skelter, toppled over each other and tried to hide somewhere. For a moment there was dead silence, then came a shrill whistling: the goulash cans returned! With a nasty bang the cans crashed to the ground, burst and distributed their contents over hundreds of meters. In between loud wailing was to be heard of hamsters who had been hit.

All this was over within a few minutes. Where before the tents had been standing now was a big lake of goulash soup.

The next day chief engineer Botchy was ordered by the mayor to drain Hamsterton with the assistance of HAMFI and HTCC. That was to say they had to pump down the goulash soup and rebuild the town. HAMPO had order to find Goldi and put him into prison – as soon as a prison was built.

Luckily the construction works now proceeded well and only few accidents happened. That was a good thing because after the hotpot-potshot matter the hospital was overcrowded and sometimes three hamsters had to share one bed. To get things going they took the boxes of the goulash cans as new houses. Three weeks later thousands of small cardboard houses were neatly lined up and the house warming party started.

Home and dry! The first one-hamster-apartments are ready!

A big card box was the platform for the mayor where he was to hold his speech. Juices and mineral water were handed to the guests of honour who joined the mayor on the platform. As usual with hamsters, they made quite a mess of the liquids and after a few minutes the mayor’s speech was finished. All that messing around with the liquids had soaked the floor so that it broke. The speaker and his noble guests disappeared under the cheers of the onlookers.

While mayor and guests of honour were taken to the overcrowded hospital, the party went on until dawn.

.

The new apartments naturally all looked alike and unfortunately nobody had numbered them. So many a hamster returned to the wrong home after having taken a stroll. Some of them did not find home at all and so the HAMPO had to be called in.

New Scandal! Where is my apartment?

The by now infuriated hamsters could not be calmed down by the police and after some brawls the HAMFI was called. The officer in charge had the mad idea to finish the fighting by using water canons. Madness – anybody knows that waters soaks card board. So it happened and at one go all houses were destroyed. For the time being nothing else could be done but distributing rugs to the hamsters. Next morning at 11.00 h an urgency meeting of all hamsters was to take place.

After a cold, uncomfortable night all the hamsters met and discussed what to do. A wooden scaffold had been erected so that the mayor could give a speech. Hamdy, who had done the building work, proposed to cut some trees and build blockhouses.

“That will be no problem at all with my new saw. I’ll be really quick!” he shouted to the cheering crowd and lifted the tool. “Look how fast I saw such a wooden post”, he added and set to work at a post beside him.

It did not take him more than two minutes to cut up the post. The hamsters applauded and also the mayor and his guests of honour were delighted. Unfortunately Hamdy had not noticed that the post belonged to the scaffold so that now the whole structure with mayor and guests of honour bent backwards.

There was a loud crash, the hamsters mafficked and stamped their feet when mayor and guests collapsed with the scaffold. The mayor was taken to the hospital where he had been already yesterday. The other hamsters were not overmuch interested in this for they walked into the wood to cut trees. Up to now nobody had told them that cutting trees is a dangerous business.

So it happened that the hamsters started a merry sawing contest and nobody minded what the others were doing. Of course that did not come off well and when the first trees fell the hamsters panicked for suddenly trees came falling from all directions. Dumple was standing beside his tree which now canted over. He turned and wanted to shout „Timber“ but he never did. A giant trunk was bending towards him. Dumple ran to the right but also there the first trees came down. He ran to the left but it was the same there. So instead of “Timber” he cried “Pleh!” flung himself to the ground and held his paws over his head. All around him it rushed and crashed, the hamsters wailed and groaned, then it was silent. Slowly Dumple got up. The splinters in his bum hurt him but the worst thing was that one of the trunks had shaved off half of his fur so that he was almost naked. He looked about him: half the forest was gone and howling hamsters were lying everywhere on the ground.

Anyhow, there was enough timber for building houses and so they started immediately. First of all an annex to the hospital was erected. As the mayor still was lying in plaster nobody held a speech but they began to build schools and dwellings. One week later there were many long faces. Chief engineer Botchy had mixed up the building plan. Instead of 2 schools and 100 residential homes they now had 100 schools and 2 residential houses. After several brawls they decided to alter 88 schools to restaurants, shops and the like. While the erection of dwellings was continued the hamsters were living in pubs and shops.

This had consequences. As most of the hamsters only thought of eating and shopping, less and less of them came to work. After two weeks no more than three lousy houses had been built, while thousands of hamsters either munched or shopped from morning to night.

The mayor who just had left the hospital had to find a solution. Together with his counsellors he held long meetings to think things over and as it so often happened with hamsters: They had no idea. Flecki who just was painting some signboards in the town hall, thought of something:

“And if the mayor declares the next days as holidays? Shops are closed on holidays.”

This idea was accepted delightedly and the mayor held a pretty speech, explaining to the hamsters that the next three weeks were to be commemoration days.

“These will be holidays and all the time we will remember the great achievements of the hamsters!” he called out to the cheering crowd.

“Which great achievements?” Fluffy asked Dumple who stood beside her, but he had no idea.

Satisfied, mayor and counsellors expected the building works to continue now but nothing happened.

So the manager of the PLOP – the Planning Office for Projects – was asked to inquire what was wrong. Timpy, who was the manager, set off immediately and soon learned that everybody had a holiday and nobody worked on holidays. Timpy was rather downcast when he had to report to the mayor that no work was to be expected as long as the commemoration days lasted.

The PLOP did not think that the end of the holidays would help in any way because then the hamsters would again enjoy their life in pubs and shops. The situation seemed to be hopeless and the estimation of PLOP was correct. The holidays ended, the hamsters went back to restaurants or shops. One day however all supplies were finished and neither pubs nor shops had to sell anything. This quite enraged the hamsters and they organized a protest march in Hamstercity. The protesters laid all the blame at the mayor’s door, the mayor laid the blame at the door of the Planning Office for Projects. PLOP explained that was not possible to buy anything if nobody worked. Now the HAMFI blamed the HTCC who blamed the HAMPO who again blamed the PLOP. The PLOP did not want to put up with that and blamed the protestors who then ravaged the PLOP-office. The HAMPO stormed all the shops to arrest the protestors who called in the HAMFI. HAMFI had no better idea but to flood the shops to finish the brawls.

Unfortunately, the building material was not watertight and the freshly erected houses collapsed. It did not take long until Hamsterton resembled the Syrian desert: deserted. There were no more houses, no shops, no pubs. Only the overcrowded hospital had survived. But the worst thing was that there was hardly anything to eat and to drink. Hamsterton was bankrupt. The hamsters again had done a first rate job.

Next day all hamsters of Hamsterton and the surroundings held a meeting to confer what to do now.

The mayor did not hold a speech. He had no idea what to say.

Some hamsters proposed to build sand castles but the HTCC reminded them that sandcastles would be washed away with the next rain. Botchy proposed to cut down the last trees but environmentally aware hamsters objected. Nobody wanted to emigrate but the landscape was much too boring to stay.

Fluffy proposed to arrange Olympic Games.

Hamsterton, a new sports complex?Why not!

Now the hamsters cheerfully started the training. The first sports events took place on the meagre greens but soon the hamsters noticed that they did not have any stadium. No Olympic Games without a stadium, but there was no money for a stadium, there was no money at all. As mentioned before, Hamsterton had gone bankrupt. Up to now the only result were a few more admissions to the hospital for naturally sports events did not go off without injuries. However, everybody had learned that darters and shot-putters should not be coaching somewhere near the runners.

“The only thing we have left is your silly canon. You and your potshots!” Flecki grumbled.

Goldi was not prepared to take the blame, but suddenly he exclaimed: “I’ve got an idea!”

Thousands of eyes and ears were turned to him and he continued: “With that canon we will ask aliens for help! Somehow I’ve heard that works. We send them goulash and for thanks they will help us to reconstruct Hamsterton. Aliens can do anything!”

The crowd cheered. This idea was worthy of a hamster because it was completely bonkers. So it had to work!

Rooty and Louisa together with Flecki und Goldi set to work to adjust the canon. There had been a long discussion which star to choose. Flecki was of the opinion they should take the 7th star in the 8th row “because it blinked so nicely”. Botchy thought the 22nd one in the 10th row more promising, Fluffy wanted the 17th star in the 20th row because she thought it really cute, and Dumple favoured the 18th star in the 2nd row. PLOP objected, HAMFI blamed PLOP, HAMPO proposed to choose the moon as it was a better target.

In short, there was much shouting and the first fights began when the mayor yelled: “How about letting Goldi decide which proposal we follow?”

Immediately everybody was quiet and goggled at Goldi. Each of them hoped that his proposal was accepted. Fluffy hopefully winked at Goldi but Flecki stepped behind him and whispered:

“My foot is on your tail. If you don’t want to become a beaver, think well before you speak.”

The Age of Space Travel Reached Hamsterton!Read in Detail: Hamsters on the Moon? Tomorrow to Come True?

Of course there was a big hamster party. Cakes and goulash soup were served while the mayor and his guests of honour were standing beside the field kitchen. He held a speech which stressed the importance of space travel in the history of Hamsterton. Then everything was ready at last: Goldi walked to the canon. The HTCC had fastened a long fuse to the canon and this fuse was lit now. Hamsterton held its breath. The mayor and his guests of honour were standing right under the muzzle, held their ears and smiled bravely to the crowd. When the fuse burnt down it became obvious why the HTCC-blockheads had chosen such a long, heavy fuse. The canon was top-heavy and they had taken such a long fuse so the canon would not topple over. While the fire now burnt on and the fuse got shorter, the canon slowly bent into a horizontal line.

Terrified, all hamsters squeaked, but the mayor and his guests of honour still held their ears and eyes closed in expectation of the explosion. Deeper and deeper the muzzle bent until it pointed right at the mayor and his guests of honour – then came a deafening bang. The blowback of the canon was so strong that it darted over the hamsters’ head right into the direction of Hamsterjelly.

By and by the smoke vanished and they had a view on the chaos. The canon was gone, but also the mayor and his noble guests of honour had disappeared. It smelled of burnt gunpowder and singed hamster fur, mixed with goulash soup.

Flecki hurried to Goldi to help him up. He rose with a groan and gasped: “Let me sleep, I can’t go on. O yes, tomorrow morning I want a 10-minutes-egg.”

By now also the other hamsters had approached and looked at Goldi’s singed fur.

“That will be grown soon”, Grumpy said whose fur was soaked with goulash soup.

“Where is the mayor and where are the guests?” Fluffy cried and they all ran to the big crater they canon shot had made. Now all the hamster stood at its edge dumbly and nobody knew what to do. HAMFI proposed to fill the crater with water so that the mayor and his noble guests could float to the surface. HAMPO wanted to carry out another blast operation, HTCC thought it better to dig.

Fortunately they all could agree on the digging. HAMFI pumped off the goulash soup while the others where digging away the soil. Dumple was the first one to come upon one of the buried victims. It was one of the noble guests and he came upon her bum. Miss Agnelia of Hamsterjelly yelled terribly when Dumple’s shovel almost cut off her tail. But as her face stuck in some mess of mud and goulash soup only some shrill gurgling sound was to be heard. Prince Princy, her spouse, was lucky that a shovel just missed his head. He had a bloody ear now, but the hospital was proud to admit a real prince.

Shocking! Famous Singer Buried Alive During Party!

Archive picture of the buried Agnelia of Hamsterjelly during her last appearance.

The mayor was the last one to be dug out. As he had been first in the row he was pressed into the soil deepest. Chief engineer Botchy was standing beside the crater and held counsel with his HTCC-colleagues. They all agreed that here something was very strange because all goulash tins had burst. Normally they should have been buried deep in the earth by the power of the canon shot. Certainly down there was a big rock so that the tins had split there. The hamsters all dug on as such a rock would be a good thing to build houses with. The digging lasted for days, until finally they rooted up a big gold coloured lump. Everybody was really disappointed because this lump was much so heavy on the one side and much too soft to build houses from it.

Well, dear reader, perhaps we would have starved or emigrated, had we after all not discovered that this big lump was solid gold! Now we were very really rich and decided to go on a nice holiday first of all. The gerbils built our streets and houses for us, there was gold enough for payment. And if something went awry, we could give them sound kicks into their bums. Some months later Hamsterton was rebuild and everything was all right. But we have our doubts that it will remain like this – we will take care of the matter!

EHT DNE

Hamsternews 3rd Edition

Hamsternews - The independent Paperfor the Up to Date Hamster

3rd Edition

Xmas in Hamstertown

Read about the latest events! Power failure in Hamsterton – just what we needed!

Celebrating Xmas by all means or something like that…

It was cold in Hamsterton and only few hamsters out in the streets....

They struggled through the high snow and their little paws left tiny traces. In the town hall the mayor was sitting beside the warm stove and wrote down his Xmas speech. He looked out of the window to the marketplace. There was much ado because some hamsters of the Hamster Technical Control Company tried to set up a big Christmas tree in the centre of the marketplace

Setting up this year’s Christmas tree – as crooked as always

The mayor sighed because the HTCC up to now had not succeeded in setting up the tree straight. Quite on the contrary. Damages at the surrounding roofs indicated several failures.

In a safe distance the HAMFI had parked their fire engine to take action in case of emergency. Some of the firefighter-hamsters idly played with the fire hose so that the marketplace became black ice and the setting up of the Christmas tree was even more difficult.

Also the police hamsters of HAMPO were present in case any misunderstandings between HTCC and HAMFI came up. Several cameramen from Hamsterhoosen Television HOOTV 1 waited to take life pictures if there were fights between HTCC and HAMFI and the police were to intervene.

The mayor took up the notes for his speech and studied them while going out to the balcony. The cold fresh air did him good.

Just when he had a very brilliant idea for his speech, he was startled out of his thoughts by loud shouts. He raised his head and saw something big and green coming towards him. Today this was the last thing the mayor saw. When HAMFI had dragged him from under the Christmas tree, he was taken to the hospital were the fir needles were tweezed from his fur.

Sorry to say, but also this year the mayor will hold an Xmas-speech

At this very moment Tuffy sat in a corner of the Hamster Technical Control Company and moped. Tuffy was a 3rd class repair hamster and dreamt of being a 2nd class repair hamster one day – even a 1st class repair hamster. While she was sweeping the office floor of the HTCC her colleagues returned from the operation and with big eyes she listened to their adventurous reports:

“… and then that big tree crashed onto the town hall’s balcony”, Botchy said. “Those HAMFI-fools wanted to take the fire engine to drag the tree away. But they skidded with their car and bumped into the town hall. So we have to set out again.”

The phone rang and Botchy lifted the receiver. “Hamster Technical Control Company”, Tuffy heard him say. A few moments later he placed down the receiver and said: “The power plant has a leakage in the heating. That has to wait, we have more important to do things.”

Tuffy cleared her throat and Botchy looked over to the 3rd class repair hamster. “Will you take care of it? But don’t fall into a gully again!”

Tuffy’s heart pounded in excitement.

“Yes, er, no”, was all she could say.

While Botchy and the other hamsters returned to the town hall, Tuffy collected the most important tools like plunger, blowpipe, hammer, and the like and set off to the power plant.

Four times Tuffy got lost, then she finally stood in front of the Hamstian Power Plant entrance. First she got to the canteen, then to the loo. At last Tuffy found the office where she was to report.

“I c-come to repair the heating”, she stammered.

“Just a minute”, an elegant hamster lady replied who was just busy combing her fur. “Hello”, she purred into the receiver. “The service hamster arrived.”

She listened for a moment, put down the receiver and said to Tuffy: “Dear service hamster, will you please wait a moment.”

Tuffy did so in some excitement, then a door opened and a hamster gestured her to come in.

“Please do wait here”, the hamster said and walked into the next room.

Tuffy sighed, sat down and looked about her. She glanced at the pictures on the walls, then checked her tools. The plunger she place beside a vase on a small table at the window and inspected the pipe tongues thoroughly. The door to the next room was forcefully openend and a hamster in a green overall entered. Tuffy was so startled that she let the pipe tongues fall onto her foot and wailed.

The overall-hamster approached her immediately, picked up the heavy pipe tongue and said: “You’ve lost this. You will be the service hamster?”

“Yes, and you are the owner of the power plant?” Tuffy asked and rubbed her aching paw.

“No”, was the answer, “I’m a member of the security force. We are most important”, he proudly added, nodded to Tuffy and pointed to the door. “Please follow me.”

Tuffy walked through the door and heard the security hamster calling: “Hey, you forgot your plunger! I’ll get it for you!”

The next moment the cracking of the vase could be heard.

“O, that silly plunger stuck to the table”, the security hamster remarked but Tuffy was not interested. She took the plunger from him and walked on into the next room.

There another hamster in a green overall was waiting. “Hello, security force”, he introduced himself. “Are you the service hamster? Please wait here”, he added and left the room.

Tuffy sat down and continued to check her tools. Again she placed the plunger onto a table on which another big vase was standing.

Cautiously she put the pipe tongues beside it and looked into her tool bag. Yes, there they were, the screwdrivers. But where were the pipe clamps? Tuffy just wanted to search for them when another hamster in a blue overall entered.

“Are you the service hamster? Please wait here”, he said and left.

Tuffy felt a bit shirty by now. She looked for her pipe clamps when the security hamster in the blue overall came in and said: “Please follow me!”

While Tuffy packed her bag the security hamster went to the table, pointed at the plunger and said: “I’ll help to carry the tools.”

Before Tuffy could say anything, it cracked and Tuffy made for the next room. Here a security hamster in a red overall was waiting to welcome her while the blue-overalled hamster followed with the wet plunger.

“Put the wet tool to the table”, the red hamster said and pointed at a small table with a big vase. Then he turned to Tuffy. “Are you the service hamster? Please wait here.” And he left the room.

“Sure I’ll wait”, Tuffy thought grumpily. “I’ve got nothing else to do.” And she continued her search for the pipe clamps.

Some minutes later the door was opened again, the red-overalled hamster came in and said: “Please follow me, I’ll take your tools.”

“Just a moment!” Tuffy cried but the security hamster had already taken the plunger – something cracked…

“A moment?” the security hamster wondered.

“Oh, it’s nothing”, Tuffy replied and followed him into the next room.

There the director of the power plant was sitting and smiled at Tuffy.

“Ah, I’m happy that you are here at last. Please take a seat and wait a moment!”

While the security hamster placed the plunger onto the director’s desk, the director was searching for something.

A very exclusive picture:

Tuffy at lunch break

“Where are the notes with my speech? I just held it in my hands.”

“Er, Sir”, the security hamster objected, “this is the service hamster only.”

“Well, well, it will not take long until he may be of service, therefore he’s named service hamster!” The director laughed on his own joke and continued ransacking his desk. Finally he found his notes and turned to the angry Tuffy.

“What is that?” he asked and pointed at the plunger.

“A tool to generate low-pressure”, Tuffy explained.

“Very interesting”, the director replied and yanked at the handle

“Where do you engage the first gear?”

Tuffy rolled her eyes. “You’ve got to take it into your hands.”

The director tore at the plunger but it stuck to the desk. He doubled his efforts but the plunger showed no reaction.

“Security!” he angrily shouted. The door opened immediately, four hamsters appeared and looked at him.

“Hand me this tool!” he ordered and pointed at the plunger. Eight paws gripped the plunger and tore at it wildly. The directors assisted them.

It did not take long until the desk collapsed.

“We made it”, the director cheered, “it is off!” He scrambled over the remainders of his desk, took the plunger, looked at it and handed it to Tuffy.

At this moment the lady entered whom Tuffy had met before.

Films...

Fun...

Musicals... in Hamsterton!

„Sir”, she purred, “the power planning hamsters have arrived.”

“Well”, the director said and pointed to the heating, “the thing is leaking. You may start with the maintenance.” Then he and the lady and the four security hamsters left the office and Tuffy sighed in relief. Now she could show her paces.

In the meantime pure chaos reigned on the marketplace. When trying to drag the Christmas tree out of the collapsed town hall the fire engine had sideslipped into the police cars. So HAMPO arrested all firemen. HTCC under the management of Botchy now began to grit the black-iced marketplace. The owners of the market stalls watched. Flecki who had a stall for self-made Christmas stars was of the opinion that it would be better to leave the tree were it was. “If the tree lies in the town hall, it will do no damage.” Goldi on the other hand said: “If we fasten a rocket to the top of the tree and fire it, the tree will straighten on its own!”

Grumpy and Topple who listened to this were delighted and ran to chief Botchy to tell him about Goldi’s idea.

While he said so the HTCC started their preparations. Hamster Police and fire brigade forgot their quarrel and hurried to be of assistance. The HAMFI fetched a big rocket from their stocks and when it had been fastened at the top of the Christmas tree, HTCC fired it. Then there was a loud woosh from the rocket. At first it looked realy swell when the tree straightened up, but then the tree took off up into the air, higher and higher. The hamster-faces became longer and longer.

Then the big Christmas tree crashed down in the middle of the marketplace, fir needles darted through the air and everywhere loud cries for help could be heard. Fluffy who had thrown herself defensively over her self-made pancakes, was helped up by Grumpy. Her front was covered with batter, her back spiked with fir needles. “My stall at least is still whole”, she sighed, looked over to her cousin Flecki and shouted: “Is your stall intact?”

“No idea”, Flecki replied. “I’ll tell you when I found it.”

Now all hamsters stood together and discussed what to do. Hamsterton was covered with green – fir needles. HAMFI and HTCC had started their usual brawl and HAMPO threw sunflower seed. Then they decided to clear away the mess. They all helped and huddled up the rubbish. Just as the marketplace resembled a marketplace again, a car drove up. It was the mayor who had left the hospital after a short treatment.

Joyfully he looked at the heap of rubbish and limped towards it. “My dear hamsters”, he exclaimed, “how very nice of you to build up a platform for me so that I can hold a speech. Luckily I’ve got my Christmas speech on me.” Then he climbed the unsafe rubbish heap.

The rubbish heap was swaying when the mayor had reached its top and started his speech. Chief engineer Botchy saw the danger, pushed forward, waved and shouted: “Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor…!” Now all hamsters began to wave and to shout for they thought Botchy was cheering the mayor on. The rubbish heap with the mayor rocked, the hamsters clapped and cheered and Botchy closed his eyes. Then the rubbish heap collapsed and all the hamsters on the marketplace cried: “Merry Christmas!”

Exclusive Picture!

Mayor in the Hospital again! And who will have to pay for it?

We of course!

It took some time to get the all over dirty mayor out of the rubbish.

So while there was much ado on the marketplace Tuffy had found her pipe clamps. They had been wrapped together with her sandwich and sunflower seed. Tuffy checked the heating and quickly found the leak. She took some adhesive tape and began to seal up the heating. Three hours later the silly heating was still leaking. So the irritated hamster took the blowpipe and lit it with a lighter. After Tuffy had burnt down half the carpet she took a rest, got out her lunch and thought: “If a pipe leaks the reason perhaps is too high pressure!” But where was the main connexion of this heating? It would be advisable to follow the heating pipes. After a round tour of one hour Tuffy was back at the leakage and tried a pipe clamp. This did not help either. So she took the hammer and tried to close the leak by well aimed blows.

The leak got bigger and bigger. Desperately she tried the blowpipe again but the leaking water killed the flame of the blowpipe. Tuffy threw the hissing tool into a corner and stuffed the biggest whole in the heating with the carpet.

“Well, well”, she thought, “I’m almost ready.” Then she left the office and walked down the passage to find somebody who had dry rugs for her. But nobody was there, as the staff had called it a day and went home. Tuffy got the idea to descend into the cellar once more. Perhaps there she would find the main pipe after all. The cellar was dark and spooky.

„Calm down“, Tuffy thought, „don’t panic. This is just a cellar and nobody is in the house. So nothing can happen to me, no panic, be calm and… PANIC, CINAP, PLEH!” she shrieked and wanted to run out through the cellar door. In her panic she tumbled against some switch unit, dragged out several switches, stumbled over cables, tore these out as well and hid in a side passage.

Now it was even darker in the cellar and Tuffy had one thought only: Back to her place of work, sealing off the leakage and home again.

On the marketplace it looked much more Xmas-like in the meantime. Topple had opened a Christmas-tree-sale, Flecki decorated the napkin-stall, Goldi helped Fluffy with the pancakes. In one of the next stalls Grumpy was sitting selling Easter bunnies. Even a hamster would not get it into his head to buy Easter bunnies at Xmas as Grumpy well knew. He offered Easter bunnies because he wanted to be left alone and not plague himself with silly customers. Topple had opened at stationary-stall. When he remembered that most of the hamsters could neither read nor write he sold everything as material for painting and drawing.

Fluffy was stressed for Goldi had already eaten 3 pancakes but baked none. Fluffy explained that he would get not more pancakes if he did not help to bake some. So Goldi disappeared and returned with his fried Dumple and some funny device. The two of them hammered and screwed and presented their invention to the gaping crowd: the first fully automatic pancake-baking-unit. It consisted of a big iron plate which slowly rotated. Beneath the plate there was a gas cooker to heat the plate. Beside this was mounted a funnel with an integrated stirrer.

“We made this from an old concrete mixer”, Dumple explained.

“Have you at least cleaned it?” Fluffy wanted to know.

Goldi’s answer was nothing but a grunt and he began to tip eggs, flour, and milk into the funnel. Then he switched on the stirrer and lit the gas cooker. The plate rotated slowly and soon the first batter began to drip onto the iron plate.

“Yipiiie!” Goldi cheered. „It works! We filled in enough batter to get pancakes until next Xmas!”

All hamster stood marvelling when portion after portion of batter landed on the hot iron plate, was baked, taken off by Fluffy and Dumple and put as pancakes on paper plates.

“Brilliant, isn’t it?” Goldi boasted and gave the machine a wanton blow. He should not have done so. The motor started to stutter, stopped and took up tenfold speed.

“Damn!” Dumple exclaimed. „The speed regulation fails!“

Flecki who was standing by and just opened her mouth to jeer, got a pancake between her teeth at full tilt so that she made a double flip backwards right into Grumpy’s Easter bunnies. The next pancake hit Topple with a loud slap and the poor hamster tumbled into the stall for roasted sunflower seed. Another slap and Fluffy whirled through the air with a shriek and with the next slap Dumple followed.

Terrified, Goldi goggled at the spinning machine, his heart pounded and he made to the machine to switch it off but two pancakes hit him and he was sent flying over the marketplace to land exactly on a fire alarm. The alarm went off while Goldi held his aching head. In the meantime Fluffy desperately tried to reach the pancake-stall but again and again she was hit by low-flying pancakes which darted over the marketplace. Flecki approached the problem in a more clever way, opened an umbrella and stalked toward the mad machine.

She really succeeded to get close to the unit but then a very low flying pancake hit her legs and she toppled over. When she raised her head to suss things out the next pancake hit her face.

“There’s the fire brigade”, Topple shouted. “We are saved.”

“I wouldn’t be that sure”, Flecki groaned and crawled out of the line of fire.

HAMFE immediately saw were the enemy was standing and got out the water hoses. The battle against the pancake-machine started. At first it looked well for the fire hamsters but soon the water mixed with the batter and the ground became very slippery. The water pressure from the hoses whirled the hamsters about until they loudly yelled “Pleh!” and took to their heels. Also HAMPO who arrived by now, had no solution. No sunflower seed helped against this enemy. Even the HTCC stood by helplessly until Goldi said to Flecki:

She got no further. The hamsters around them greeted the idea with loud cheers. Mounting and adjusting the rockets did not take long, then Botchy gave the command:

“Fire!”

Exclusive picture:Firefighter Botchy bravely gives the command

With a hiss the first rocket shot towards the pancake-machine, then the second and the third one. Excitedly and with loud “Yarooh, yarooh!” shouts the hamsters watched the flight of the dangerous missiles. Then Flecki’s fears became true: the flying pancakes met the flying rockets and changed their direction. The yarooh-shouts of the hamsters changed to pleh-cries and they bolted into all directions. The course of the first rocket was deflected upwards. It shot steeply into the sky and came down with a crash in the town hall. The second rocket landed on the playground of the Tabsy-Hoosen-School, but luckily nobody was there. The third rocket had almost reached its target when it was hit by several pancakes and exploded.

Desperately, HAMFI, HTCC, HAMPO and all inhabitants of Hamsterton tried to secure their town and their houses against the missiles.

“If this doesn’t stop, all houses will collapse under the pancakes”, chief engineer Botchy lamented and the mayor had nothing at all to say.

Tuffy, who did not realize anything of this disaster, was still anxiously toddling through the dark cellars of the Hamstian Power Plant. Cautiously she crawled from one passage to the next and every moment she expected some hamster-eating monster to fall upon her.

“If I only had taken along the pipe tongs”, she unhappily thought, feeling along the wall towards the exit. “This way I’ll never be a 2nd class repair hamster”, she sadly thought, while she crept along the staircase. This ran in a half-circle and when she went upstairs she heard quite an uproar from the marketplace. She opened a window and sadly looked out.

It sounded as if her friends had already started the fireworks.

„O well, do hold your party“, she shouted out of the window into the direction of the marketplace. “I, Tuffy, 3rd class repair hamster, will do my duty to the bitter end and until everything is finished!” After this brave announcement she felt much better. Panting, she reached the top of the stairs on her short legs and anxiously followed the next pitch dark passage.

Trembling, Tuffy opened a creaking door. Also this room lay in darkness, there was some hissing sound and an odd smell. Then the frightened hamster-girl felt something under her paw. The lighter! She took it and hastened back to the passage. Panting, she decided to use the lighter as a candle and to go back into the dark room. Cautiously she opened the door, holding up the lighter.

“This smell”, she thought, “ now where did I notice it before? Wasn’t that during the very first operation before chief Botchy had to be taken to the hospital because a gas explosion…”

Shocked, Tuffy stopped and then it happened: with a loud “Whamm!” the door came towards her and she tumbled down the staircase. Squeaking loudly, she rolled from step to step until she reached the cellar. But that rescued her for over her head the whole building of the Hamstian Power Plant seemed to explode.

Another exclusive picture: Repair hamster snapped on job!

To the little 3rd class repair hamster it seemed like an eternity until the crashing and rumbling in the building stopped. She plucked up all her courage and raced to the exit. It was dark outside and Tuffy wondered why all the street lights were out. She hurried on towards the town centre. It was dark all over – that was quite creepy. Even the noise on the marketplace had died down.

„Funny“, she thought. „They can’t be all gone to sleep, can they?“ Then she reached the market place. There they were, all her friends, the mayor, too, who helped some fire fighters to light and distribute candles. Half a Christmas tree stood in the centre of the marketplace, decorated with candles and rocket remains.

The mayor just wanted to hold a speed when chief engineer Botchy shouted: “There she is! There is Tuffy!”

Tuffy panicked – what was on? What had she done wrong? Then she suddenly had the idea that the explosion in the Hamstian Power Plant and the power failure in Hamsterton might be connected!

“I w-will repair everything tomorrow!“ she sobbed.

“And we all will help you!” the fire fighter hamsters and the HTCC-hamsters shouted. Then all the hamsters called “Tuffy, Tuffy!” and some of them lifted her on their shoulders and the mayor began his speech. Completely dazzled, the little 3rd class repair hamster listened to the mayor’s words:

“Thanks to the brave action of a single hamster-girl our beautiful Hamsterton was rescued from the dangerous killerpancake-machine. Again it became apparent that the brain of the individual hamsters triumphs over sheer force. To switch off the power was a most brilliant idea to solve our serious problems. For this reason, my dear Tuffy, I award you with the 1st class repair hamster medal. In this speech I again want to stress the fact…”

Tuffy did not pick up the rest of the speech. With big eyes she glanced at the half Christmas tree and knew that Today was the most wonderful Xmas of her life.